Guild Wars 2

santenal.1054:

A kit sees different amounts of use in the various game modes.

I am going to name a few simple tweaks that I think would make the underused kits (in WVW roaming ) quite a bit more popular. (Not adressing all the problems with the particular kits)

-Grenade Kit: Make the Velocity increase (and maybe radius increase) of the “Grenadier” trait baseline so people can use the kit (and hit people) without the explosives traitline. This would make it possible to theorycraft alot more decent grenade builds.

-Bomb Kit: Make the fuse time 0.5s standard.

-Med Kit: Make #2-5 AoE.

-Mortar Kit: also give it an increased velocity. That it hits like wet noodles wouldn’t mather as much if it could be reliably used for attacking from afar.

“Elixir Gun” , “Tool Kit” and “Flamethrower” are popular kits and with good reason, they are pretty great. (though flamethrower has been made useless for powerbuilds (damage wise)).

I agree with all of this. Especially the bolded part. I would love to play a decent P/P or P/S condi grenade build again (edit: talking about PvP only).

Have mercy Karl.

What makes Scrappers so scary? They bore the player and the opponent to death.

coro.3176:

I guess to simplify a bit:

If you want to be competitive, you need a lot of on-demand condi clear. On engi, that means elixirs or purge gyro. Purge gyro doesn’t do anything else and pathing/aoe can be a problem, so it’s usually not worth wasting a skill slot on. To this end, I’d like to trade my elite for a regular skill (and our elites are really good! I just need another skill slot for condi clear if I want to survive). The alternative is playing Alchemy & Inventions, like every other PvP build.
[…]

I have felt the very same way for a long time now. Many times I feel like the elite skill slot is holding back core Engineer builds. You could come up with many working core builds if you didn’t have to sacrifice utility for damage (or the other way around). I would chose that option even if I had to sacrifice a specialisation and grand master trait.

Karl McLain.5604:

I’m always here.

-Karl

When you go to the forums look behind you, because that’s where Karl is going to be.

Very good post OP. I agree wholeheartedly. In my opinion, the combat has always been the game’s major selling point. It took a big hit on June 23rd 2015. Too many merges, too much power creep. It got a lot worse with HoT.

The outlines of this once great system are still there, but playing and fighting the new specialisations feels obnoxious at best. They bring too much to the table, both in offence and defence. Patience, careful use of cool downs and game knowledge aren’t rewarded anymore. Uninteresting game mechanics (evades, stealth, blocks, immunities, ludicrously low cool downs, spam) are the new deciding factor.

I don’t think the Rifle needs a lot of buffs. I do not want another stand-alone weapon. I’d much rather see a return of the Grenade Kit game play in PvP/WvW. In my (arguably limited) experience, it’s not so much the projectile hate that is keeping back the Grenade Kit, but the overwhelming damage elite specs can throw at you. You simply cannot give up a utility slot for an offensive weapon Kit and expect to survive. You are pretty much forced to dedicate every utility slot to survival. An offensive weapon Kit hurts your survivability a lot. In my eyes, a simple fix would be to make the Grenade Kit the new elite weapon Kit. That way, you could run two stun breakers (Elixir S and Elixir Gun are a potent combination) and the Tool Kit and still have access to the damage of the Grenade Kit.

Pros:
• the Kit game play becomes an option again. I’m not saying (hoping?) that an elite Grenade Kit could be viable at the highest competitive level, but you would at least stand a fighting chance;
• the Grenadier trait could reflect the elite status by also upping the range of the Grenade Kit abilities and Tool Belt skill by 300 units (from 900 up to 1.200);
• as far as I know (maybe a more knowledgeable player can fill me in here), this won’t mess up the dominant PvE build. Since it uses both the Mortar Kit and the Grenade Kit, both would simply swap places on the ability bar;
• the Grenade Kit abilities deal splash damage. With proper targeting you can still damage an opponent sitting in a reflect bubble. This has always worked and still works now. It directly rewards player input and skill;
• I’m not a programmer but I’m under the impression that this is a relatively minor fix. At any rate, it is much less work than a complete Rifle overhaul.

Cons:
• my proposal leaves the old school condition Grenade Kit build in the dust. The Explosives trait line does not synergize with a condition build;
• my proposal leaves the Static Discharge build in the dust. Sacrificing a utility slot for the Rifle Turret/Personal Battering Ram is highly detrimental to your survivability (just like it currently is for the Grenade Kit);
• my proposal leaves the Bomb Kit in the dust since it suffers from the same lack of defensive utility as any other offensive weapon Kit.

Thanks for reading and may our overlords gift us with a viable Kit build.
/beg

HoT definitely ruined the game for me. My main issue isn’t the maps (which I actually find rather fun) nor the underwhelming and lackluster story. Despite being primarily a WvW/PvP player I didn’t even mind the Deserted Borderlands that much.

What puts me off is the destruction of the combat system. In my opinion the combat system has always been the game’s major selling point. Yet the June 23rd 2015 specialisation patch and later HoT have hurt it greatly. In June 2015 too many traits were made baseline. Well established play styles were scrapped entirely (RIP condi Grenades). The power creep was immense. On top of the ill balanced June patch Arena Net dropped HoT. The new elite specialisations introduced even more power creep. For me, the combat got even less enjoyable. Elite specialisations are too forgiving. They bring too much offence and defence, there’s no weaknesses anymore. Cool downs are too low across the board. Rotations (aka spamming) are more important than patience and good skill use. For me, the characters with weaknesses we once had were far more interesting to play and fight than the super soldiers we have now. Sadly future elite specialisations will not fix that problem. They will most likely set the bar even higher and exacerbate the problem.

RlyOsim.2497:

I quit a few months ago, I’m just here for a cup of tea to see how to community is.

Really good discussion in this thread btw, great to see some a healthy talk if not somewhat depressing

I think it’s been touched on but just to add, GW’s is a game aimed at casuals. For me that’s the core issue with PvP and I think it will be the issue that eventually kills PvP off completely (altho you could argue that maybe it’s at that stage already). With casuals that want to PvE, PvE will be the skill balance focus. Combined with that raids have now introduced a level of creep that sets the floor-level of power-creep in PvP. Without major chances to those the PvP bar won’t be moving.

Also, I saw a number of people mentioned going to WvW as it ‘looks like it’s improving’. It’s not, WvW is dying, not as quickly as PvP maybe but it is heavily impacted by the mickey mouse changes to class balance as well.

Anyway, goodluck with the conversation and the hours of frustration!

I agree with this. The specialisation patch that went live a little more than a year ago already took a huge toll on my enjoyment of the game. Too many traits became baseline, too many others got merged. The power creep was immense. On top of that, the specialisation patch didn’t even address the issues it was supposed to fix (removal of redundant or unused traits).

When Heart of Thorns hit I tried for a month to find an enjoyable build for my main profession but I quickly came to the conclusion that everything I found fun so far was now obsolete. My in game activity plummeted, and nowadays I only log in to chat with the single friend that still actively plays GW2.

I also agree that WvW is probably in a worse shape than PvP. Small scale and roaming (for the sake of the argument lets say 5v5 and less) is plagued by the same broken builds you find in PvP. If you add in the broken gear choices (Perplexity, Durability, etc.), the food buffs, the guild buffs and every other piece of power creep you’re looking at an inextricable mess.

A character with weaknesses is both fun to play and fight. The characters we have right now are the exact opposite.

I dearly miss the Kit play style. It was definitely one of the most fun things I ever experienced in a game. Up until June 2015 I enjoyed every moment playing the Engineer profession. It’s a shame Kits got the Turret treatment.

A Scrapper is not an Engineer. Many moons ago the Engineer was a very enjoyable profession. The Scrapper on the other hand is an abomination. It doesn’t even get close to how fun Engineers used to be.

This is a really good and much needed change.

I like the ideas. Scrap the Scrapper. Bring back the (Grenade) Kit Engineer.

I am very sceptical a new (old) map is going to cut it.

Since the June 2015 patch the quality of the combat has suffered a lot. Too much power creep, too much damage, too many unplayable builds, too many dumbed down mechanics. HoT made everything worse. Elite specialisations became the only way to play. The power creep got pushed to a whole new level. The combat degenerated to blowing up or getting blown up. Powerful abilities with low cool downs. Skills combining offense and defense. Intelligent play is a thing of the past. It’s all about spamming harder. Worst of hall, playing with a core build feels like being “upscaled” all over again.

That said, I actually believe that the Alpine map will highlight the many problems even more. Visions of hammer Revenants and Dragon Hunters spamming their CC and damage on Hills choke points (the bridge on inner and the bridge from water camp for example) give me a cold sweat. It’s going to be a lot of “fun”.

As stated before, I really appreciate your company’s new stance on communication.

Despite a very positive impression, your post sadly left out any information on the class and skill balance. Are you going to undo or at least alleviate the power creep introduced in June and October 2015? The quality and enjoyment of the combat has taken a serious blow on both occasions and I would strongly dislike to see the situation degenerate even further.

I welcome this. Thank you for getting out here and taking the flak. I genuinely mean it. This face to face communication is what we needed all along. Please keep it up.

For me a new map isn’t going to fix it. The June 2015 balance patch and later HoT destroyed the balance GW2 once had. The game in it’s very core element is lacking and no map can fix that.

The power creep introduced by the June 2015 patch altered and changed many builds and removed others entirely. Too many traits became baseline or got merged. The patch introduced many passive abilities (for example the infamous Self Regulating Defenses) degrading gameplay even further.

HoT made everything worse. We got even more passives (passive Stability and passive CC being among the worst), powerful abilities with extremely low cool downs and unprecedented damage and sustain levels. Balance and counter play were thrown out of the window. Elite specialisations became the only way to play, forcing a new play style on many veteran players if they wanted to stay competitive. Furthermore, the Elite specialisations didn’t add any depth to the combat. On the contrary, they dumbed it down even further. Player versus player combat became mostly unenjoyable.

For me, the only way to make the game enjoyable again is to undo the June 2015 patch (no baseline traits, unmerge the traits, remove the useless traits and replace them with the secondary effect of the unmerged traits) and to severely nerf Elite specialisations.

Stand The Wall.6987:

anyway i think its too late for this because a lot of people grinded for their gear solely to use it for wvw. how would we recompensate all of these players? it would be impossible to do without a buff to hackers, i.e. account hack and salvage everything kinda deal.

I own several sets of Ascended armor and multiple Ascended weapons and I wouldn’t mind to scrap them without compensation. Ascended gear added nothing good to WvW and the game as a whole. If WvW gear was scaled down to Exotic level, combat would be a lot more enjoyable (along with undoing the June 2015 patch and nerfing Elite specialisations).

I couldn’t agree more. While I was an avid Engineer fan I feel that every profession and the game as a whole has suffered from the June 2015 patch. I welcomed the idea of removing unused or useless traits. But merging traits and making others baseline was a bad idea. The “streamlining” only lead to power creep, destroyed or altered the Engineer play style in a significant way (for example “old school” Rabid Engineer was so much more enjoyable than the terribly boring Burning stacking) and didn’t even achieve it’s objective: we still got a large group of unused and useless traits.

I’ve been enjoying the game less and less since June 2015. Since HoT my motivation dropped even further. Sadly I don’t see that change in the future.

makku.2508:

erKo.9586:

Karl is working specifically on WvW-focused skill balance.

Welp.

My personal reaction was more colourful but in essence that is exactly how I feel about it. Karl’s previous balance efforts have left a permanent … uh … impression.

I particularly miss the Grenade Kit (talking about PvP and WvW, I don’t care about PvE). Landing grenades at impossible ranges and angles was fun and rewarding. Watching good players use the Grenade Kit was inspiring. By reducing the utility of the Kit the June 2015 patch reduced my enjoyment of the profession and the game as a whole. While before every Grenade Kit ability had different uses, the Kit was now all around damage spam. HoT rendered Grenades and most other Kits useless and pretty much sealed the deal. The Scrapper’s linear and passive play style is worlds apart from what the Kit play used to be. It’s sad really.

To be honest I still don’t mind the map that much. There’s some areas that I dislike more than others (air keep) and some ideas that are more annoying than anything else (barricades and laser event) but overall I don’t think the map is too bad.

What I find far worse is the atrocious class balance and the power creep introduced with the June 2015 patch and later HoT. You could say that in order to enjoy combat you first have to find a fight (yes the situation is that desperate) but if the combat mechanic itself is not enjoyable anymore, the map won’t fix it.

By now every person still playing this game qualifies as an idiot (yes that includes me). Banning everyone is not an option I guess.

Deniara Devious.3948:

The June 23 trait rework patch + HoT expansion completely wrecked the balance and lead to massive power creep. Removal of amulets did not lead to richer meta, instead we got lots of valid builds deleted. The current meta can be described as follows: “burst first to win”. Almost every match is either a huge loss or huge win as the utterly broken meta + match making together lead to snow balling.

This so very much. It still baffles that within 4 months (June 2015 to October 2015) Arena Net managed to completely destroy one of the most fun combat systems ever designed. I certainly won’t deny that the game had problems even before June 2015 and that after 3 years the game was growing stale. But that was never because of the combat system. It was mainly for the complete lack of new maps, game modes and meaningful content. In retrospect it looks like years of development were wasted to improve a system that didn’t need improving.

I completely agree. My personal enjoyment of the game took already a big hit with the June patch 2015. I liked the idea of streamlining traits, but the execution was awful. Merging some traits and making too many others baseline was a bad idea. Too much power creep. Then came HoT and it got even worse. Every class got access to the most uninteresting mechanics (more evades, more blocks, more boon spam, more burst damage, more stealth, more passives, etc.). All the new abilities are on very low cools downs leading to more spam instead of intelligent use. I fail to see how the developers believed that this is fun.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

That is an interesting suggestion. Who else would you like to see as returning heroes in stronghold?

You could add the core professions. Sacrificed on the altar of power creep. Maybe make a special mention for the Warrior.

The most boring way to play Engineer is to play Scrapper: limited use of Weapon Kits, passive healing, passive damage reduction, passive stability, passive invulnerability (arguably not a Scrapper problem but especially ridiculous with Scrapper builds), low risk high reward weapon skills (solid damage coupled with defence), powerful abilities with no cast time (most notoriously the Sneak “Skill” Gyro), powerful abilities (weapon, utilities, elite) with low cool downs rewarding spam instead of intelligent use, etc. All this leads to a very boring and forgiving play style giving the player little reason to improve. Mistakes aren’t punished and most of the time a panic button is off cool down.

MadVisions.4529:

TheLargeUnit.2793:

Support canning elite specs and going back to the pre expansion meta, a meta in which EVERY profession had at LEAST one viable build?

Or are the new shinys too tempting, are new abilities and missing counterplay your cup of tea?

This meta blows kitten

i’d pay for a server running with pre juny patch…

This made me smile. I said the exact same thing to a friend yesterday evening. I’d pay to get the game back how it was before the “streamlining”.

insanemaniac.2456:

@ elmo

it isnt hammers damage, its the utility. the damage is fine. its melee. it should be doing tons of damage. it always has a marauder amulet behind it. if the damage was pathetic with marauder amulet, then it would need to be buffed.

take away 1 or 2 of the special defensive effects and suddenly a glass scrapper wont be able to randomly sidestep burst any more just by spamming skills. take away some sustain and a glass scrapper wont be able to outheal what little damage it is taking.

but there really is no reason a marauder amulet build shouldnt be doing damage.

Very good point. Thanks for the input.

I admit I’m very biased. I do not enjoy Scrapper at all. Hence my (too) negative view on this.

Azukas.1426:

Scrapper wasnt nerfed enough last balance patch. In terms of overall health of the game the current meta build needs to be toned down significantly in terms of either damage or survivability.

I understand that there are a lot of Homers of this forum but please realize that for the good of the game is a,real thing. A marauder amulet wearing class with scrapper survivability is bad for that btw.

Also remember this isn’t about the changes the other elites need. We all know and will voice them in the proper areas. This is about the brokenness of scrapper.

I’m quoting this for truth.

Hammer is over-performing. The damage from all skills needs to go down. The cool-downs need to go up. Rocket Charge should at best have one Leap Finisher. The range on Thunderclap needs to go down. 600 units at most. A melee weapon should never have an attack that competes with ranged weapons.

Sneak Gyro needs a cast time. 3/4 second seems reasonable. I also believe the cool-down needs to go up. Go with 75 seconds for now. Though I believe even that is still too low. Targetable or not, the Sneak Gyro should only allow you to reset the fight once. Right now, even with 40 seconds cool-down, it’s an almost always available escape tool.

The healing on Rapid Regeneration needs to go down. For an ability that requires little to no player input it heals way too much. Adaptive Armour could use a reduction too. -20% condition damage and +60 extra Toughness on a completely passive ability is too much. The trait should probably only provide one of the benefits.

To compensate for base damage going down and base cool-downs going up, there need to be traits that reduce weapon ability cool-downs and increase Hammer damage. Those traits need to compete with the tanking options (Rapid Regeneration and Adaptive Armour namely). The player should have to choose between sustain or damage.

Perfectly Weighted needs changing too. Random dodging should not be rewarded.

On a more general note, I’m still shocked by the lazy design of the trait line. In June 2015 Backpack Generator gets nerfed so hard it is not worth taking (I still wonder why it is in the game at all in it’s current iteration?). 3 months later we get Rapid Regeneration that has the very same effect but is even stronger. Instead of reducing the uninteresting mechanics (stealth, evades, passive healing, passive stability, passive damage reduction, etc.) all of it got added to the Scrapper. It’s a design decision I cannot understand.

On an even more general note I believe the June patch should be partially undone. Streamlining the trait system was a very good idea. Merging the traits and making several traits baseline wasn’t. I wish we would get a major trait overhaul across all classes. Break up the traits. Give them 1 benefit at most. Let the player make a significant and build defining choice.

I really hate to see the Engineer (and the game in general) in it’s current state. The combat, for me the major (if not the only) selling factor of Guild Wars 2 is not fun anymore.

Ah well. Flame away.

Lordrosicky.5813:

the people who made the game understood that builds had to give up something to make the game skill based with counterplay. When they merged all the traits they just let everyone have everything. The result is a game based on spam and rotations basically. It took all the skill out of it, and that was a while ago now. I basically quit a few days after that patch. It was so stupid. Such a huge power creep.

Would an fps be fun if everyone carried round nukes and everyone also had made body armour? Nope. It would be balanced, sure. But its not good design. Look at gw2 now. Everyone has perms boons. Perma condis. Perma condi clear. Perma 6k attacks. Perma healing. There are traits which are a whole build in one trait. There was a reason alot of these traits were spread out before. If you wanted to run signets there were a few traits to take. Meditations on guardian meant a few traits. That meant builds were more focussed on a role and had weaknesses which could be exploited with skilled play.

Look at some of the traits now. They are insane . They are about 4 traits combined. This is madness. That is why the game is dead. People play pvp for pve rewards. That is all.

There are about 20 dudes probably not talented enough to suceed at real esports games who will exploit the fact anet is giving away a bit of money for their dead game. There is no skill i this game. Its all based on comp, has been for 18 montns. And on spamking rotations on a point.

Its dead. The trait merge patch ensured of that. Power creep killed it

This is definitely a very good post. It’s exactly how I feel about the game.

Yashuoa.9527:

Elmo Benchwarmer.3025:

Yashuoa.9527:

Elmo Benchwarmer.3025:

I hope this wasn’t everything and that there will be more nerfs. I really came to dislike the Scrapper. It ruined the Engineer play style that I have been enjoying for years now. Scrap the Scrapper.

Why do you want nerfs for scrapper? There are also people who like Scrapper.
If you prefer other Engineer play styles, you could suggest buffs for those playstyles, and just leave Scrapper where it is.

They want to make the builds more distinctive so who knows what may still be done for the other weapons and kits.

I want nerfs because buffs lead to the current mess. Both Elite and Core specialisations should be nerfed. The power creep we have seen on June 23rd made the game considerably less fun. With HoT release this got even worse.

At this point I would like to see a complete overhaul. Traits should be broken up so that 1 trait does exactly 1 thing. Merging traits was a bad idea. Making traits baseline was equally bad. As a player you should have to chose, not get everything in a well rounded package. The current Marauder Scrapper is one of the worst examples of this power creep. That is why I dislike it. That is why I want it nerfed.

Engineer in general is about being well rounded/a mix of several things. Where most other classes specialise more in a field.

You mean both elite and core specs on all classes right?
That wont happen in this patch alone
and it wont do Engineer any good to do it on Scrapper for now and not on all classes wide.

Still as said, engineers are about being a mix of several things.
Whereas most other classes specialise more in a field.
I dont want that engineer identity to go away.

Scrapper destroyed the Engineer identity. It is literally contrary to everything the Engineer used to be.

Yashuoa.9527:

Elmo Benchwarmer.3025:

I hope this wasn’t everything and that there will be more nerfs. I really came to dislike the Scrapper. It ruined the Engineer play style that I have been enjoying for years now. Scrap the Scrapper.

Why do you want nerfs for scrapper? There are also people who like Scrapper.
If you prefer other Engineer play styles, you could suggest buffs for those playstyles, and just leave Scrapper where it is.

They want to make the builds more distinctive so who knows what may still be done for the other weapons and kits.

I want nerfs because buffs lead to the current mess. Both Elite and Core specialisations should be nerfed. The power creep we have seen on June 23rd made the game considerably less fun. With HoT release this got even worse.

At this point I would like to see a complete overhaul. Traits should be broken up so that 1 trait does exactly 1 thing. Merging traits was a bad idea. Making traits baseline was equally bad. As a player you should have to chose, not get everything in a well rounded package. The current Marauder Scrapper is one of the worst examples of this power creep. That is why I dislike it. That is why I want it nerfed.

I hope this wasn’t everything and that there will be more nerfs. I really came to dislike the Scrapper. It ruined the Engineer play style that I have been enjoying for years now. Scrap the Scrapper.

Yes Flamethrower is the way to go since the June patch. For me the issue is not the effectiveness of a build , but rather interesting combat mechanics. Compared to the play style of the old rabid Grenade Kit build, the Flamethrower build does feel boring and uninteresting. Landing grenades at great distances and impossible angles felt rewarding. Watching a good player handle the Grenade Kit was fun. Handling the Incendiary Ammo proc is on the other hand much less engaging. Since the Burning damage is crazy high, even if your stacks get cleansed quickly, you are guaranteed to take out a large portion of your target’s health. Highly rewarding for minimal player input. The current Burning stack Scrapper stands for the dumbing down of combat mechanics.

I miss the “old” play style too. The rabid Pistol/Shield/Grenade Kit/Tool Kit/stun breaker/Supply Crate build was so much fun to play. I still don’t see how the June patch and later HoT were an improvement over the previous builds. 7 seconds of invulnerability (aka evade), RNG elite and the most boring Burning stack build ever were definitely not a step forward. Before the Scrapper hit I did not believe it could get any worse.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Scrapper:
Thunderclap: Ionize an area, bringing down the power of lightning to stun foes and damage them over its duration.
Changed: Stun -> Daze
Range: 1,200 -> 900
Recharge: 24 seconds -> 30 seconds

Rocket Charge: Dash forward with a rocket-charged hammer to damage enemies.
Recharge: 10 seconds -> 12 seconds

Equalizing Blow (3rd hammer auto-chain): Bring down your hammer on your foe.
Removed: Might, Vulnerability.
Casting time: 1/2 second -> 1 second
Added: Now a Blast Finisher.

Rapid Regeneration – Rapidly regenerate health while affected by swiftness or superspeed.
Healing from Swiftness: 105 -> 53 (50% reduction)
Healing from Super Speed: Superspeed: 470 – 235 (50% reduction)
Healing scaling from Swiftness: 0.04 -> 0.08 (100% increase)
Healing scaling from Super Speed: 0.16 -> 0.25 (56.25% increase)

Adaptive Armor: Gain stacking toughness when struck. Reduce incoming condition damage.
Scaling changed when struck: Gain 3% to your current toughness each stack.
Scaling changed when struck: Incoming condition damage reduced by 3% each stack.
Max stacks is still 5.

Impact Savant: The duration of your outgoing stuns and dazes are increased, and the duration of stuns and dazes applied to you are decreased.
Changed to: When you interrupt a foe, gain quickness. (2 seconds of quickness, 5 second cooldown)

Reason: The extra strong crowd control from Thunderclap with the sustain from traits made scrapper much tankier than it should be. With the same idea in mind, the scrapper must invest more into Healing Power to get a better sustaining result. The change to Impact Savant and Thunderclap also reflects as a reduction to sustain.

I want to highlight this. Those are very sensible changes that go in the right direction. A good start to bring Scrapper back into line.

The strongly dislike the power creep the game has been subject to since the June patch.

messiah.1908:

Engi nerf train is on your way

I hope it’s ahead on schedule. I’ll trust your messianic abilities.

I really hate what the June patch and HoT did to the Engineer profession. But I guess a meaningful change won’t happen.

I really hope the Scrapper gets scrapped next. Engineer is by far my favourite profession and I hate to see it in the state it is right now. The profession has been going downhill since the June patch. Burn stacking, RNG elites and 7 seconds of invulnerability (or evade for the puritans) were definitely no improvement over the celestial rifle build and the dominance of the Grenade Kit in general. Scrapper continued the downhill trend started in June.

Hammer weapon skills need to change. The cool downs need to go up, the damage down. Dealing damage while at the same time negating damage is just wrong. Even more so if the abilities provide additional utility (Leap Finisher). Adaptive Armour and Rapid Regeneration need some serious tweaks. Mass Momentum and Perfectly Weighted need to be brought up on par. The player should have to chose between offense and defence. Damaged modifiers and reduced weapon skill cool downs on one side. Sustain on the other side. Not everything in one well rounded package. The cool down on Sneak Gyro needs to be doubled at least.

Some core traits also need adjusting. The dominance of the Alchemy line is too extreme. It offers too much synergy compared to other options.

What baffles me the most though is the poor design of the new trait lines. Adaptive Armour is what Iron Blooded should have been. It would then also compete with HGH forcing a meaningful decision on the player. First destroying Backpack Regenerator and then replacing it with an equally passive ability (Rapid Regeneration) that does the very same thing further underlines the poor design choices. More AI skills (Gyros) to replace other utterly useless AI utilities (Turrets) seals the deal.

What about “visual noise”?!

Although – or more precisely because – my favourite profession is one of the top offenders I want nerfs. A lot of nerfs all over the board.

The June patch was a catastrophe, HoT a complete disaster. While I managed to adjust after the June patch, HoT totally screwed me over. The alternative way to play became the only way. I despise the power creep. The erosion of profession identity and mechanics makes it worse.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

A week later it’s still disabled. LOL. Anet do your devs even work? No balance, no hotfixing, no bugfixing, WHAT DO YOUR DEVS DO?

They are farming solo queue players with their Abjured friends.

Seriously though, an update would be welcome, even if it’s a “we have no kitten clue”. The truth is better than this oppressive silence.

P.S.: I typed that kitten out.

This would make me really happy.

I already did not like the June patch. The power creep was terrible. It made builds I enjoyed unplayable or changed them in a way that was not fun for me. HoT made it worse. The profession identity went out of the window. The new traits, instead of bringing something fresh to the table, made the game less enjoyable for me.

I like the new map:

-Map design is really good. I like the choke points. I like the fact that you can use the terrain to your advantage. The player with map knowledge finally has an advantage. Learn the passages, learn the jump spots. More power to you.
-I like the keep buffs. Yes they are powerful. The boon you get gives you a serious advantage. But shrines can be captured before starting a siege. Splitting up finally makes sense.
-Defending is finally possible. On several occasions my server has successfully defended a keep against vastly superior numbers.
-I like that the map is big. If you take out enemy players it takes very long for them to join the fight again. A defeated player will not reengage 30 seconds later. This favors the defenders. It punishes all out offense. You need to actually plan before moving on.
-I like the Marked effect.
-I like automatic upgrades. As a player I can focus on siege building, scouting, taking out stragglers, making blobs miserable.
-I love the removal of the Guard stacks. You can still enjoy WvW build diversity but you are now forced to make a choice.

All in all an excellent upgrade over the old WvW map. Too bad we did not have this earlier.

I only talk about small group compositions in my post. 1v1s, especially in WvW, are imbalanced by definition. It is a completely impractical “mode” (luckily it’s not even one). There are too many hard counters in Guild Wars 2. For reference, although it’s sPvP, have a look at the banned traits and amulets in 1v1 tournaments.

Back on topic. While I agree with the stealth, I completely disagree with the conditions. Playing power builds has never been so rewarding and easy (mind you I play one myself). In my tier most small groups (groups of 2-3 players) prefer high power damage burst builds that rely on stealth, immunities and mobility to score a kill before the enemy can even retaliate. Building on immunities and stealth with a power build is definitely not smarter than running a condition build. The often debilitating damage a power build can pump out while being impregnable to one or often several forms of damage is – to put it mildly – ludicrous.

That said, I certainly don’t defend Perplexity runes. They should have been nerfed (again) a really long time ago. But the main reason why Perplexity PU Mesmers are so obnoxious is not the condition damage but the disproportionate stealth upkeep. But both power builds and condition builds are equally guilty of abusing that flawed game mechanic.

The real question is: can you Moa a gyro?

I’d also like an effect that stops teleports. Teleports are very powerful, IMHO only second to stealth. Teleports render good positioning useless, make kiting too easy and confer high combat mobility – all in one package.

I honestly don’t understand all this condition damage rage. At least in my tier the only common condition damage build is Perplexity PU Mesmers. While I certainly would welcome an overhaul of Perplexity, the reason that build is so strong is primarily the high stealth upkeep, not the condition damage. Excessive dependance on stealth though is something that both condition and power damage builds share alike.

That said, most so-called roamers prefer high burst power builds relying on immunities (or evades or blocks or any other defensive mechanism) to score a kill before the opposition can even retaliate. In combination with stealth those burst builds are definitely not more intelligent to play than condition builds. And unless the player running a high burst power build gets overly self confident he can escape just as well because he has an additional advantage: high mobility.

To be honest I have very little sympathy for the people that keep screaming for 1v1. Dueling in GW2 is essentially useless. This is especially true in WvW. There are way too many abilities, mechanics, buff and gear choices that make dueling a moot point (blinks, immunities of any kind, high stealth upkeep, guard stacks, food, Perplexity runes, etc.).

It’s especially bad when duelers monopolize large portions of the map that see a lot of activity, like the island above South Camp. If you absolutely have to duel do it where no one disturbs you and you disturb no one else. As has been said, Windmill or Obsidian Sanctum come to mind. That way you avoid a lot of bad feelings.

For me optimal WvW group size is 2-3 players. GW is a team game and nothing can change that fact. In a small group support is essential and by grouping up you can take small objectives or even larger, lightly defended ones. I’m also lucky to play with people that don’t favour the usual bursty gank builds that are very common nowadays. That makes playing WvW very enjoyable for me. That said, we usually leave alone smaller groups or solo roamers unless they attack us. I OTOH make an exception for notorious guilds and trolls. You reap what you saw.

Because the word “montage” says it all. It’s a compilation of nice moments. Nothing more.

As has been said, if you run into opponents of equal skill that happen to run proved and tested builds and are properly geared it is impossible to win outnumbered. But the “montages” do not show that. They show fights versus people with the wrong builds, gear or no experience. The person making a video will of course want to “show off” so you won’t see when he gets destroyed.

Now before you scream blasphemy consider that losing to another player is not necessarily lack of competence. You simply cannot win certain matchups versus an equally competent opponent. There are too many hard counters. That is also why 1v1 especially in WvW is essentially meaningless. There are too many problematic gear and ability choices (food, guard stacks, high stealth upkeep, immunities of any kind, ascended gear, perplexity runes, and so on). The only time dueling serves a purpose is if you want to get into sPvP and want to learn how curent meta builds work.

Horrible.